The Power of Screening and Treatment Advances
- A new study finds that the five-year survival rate of people with non-small-cell lung cancer has improved significantly since the same data was collected in 2014 and 2015.
- The findings suggest that improved lung cancer screening has enabled doctors to catch lung cancer in earlier and more treatable stages.
- In the majority of people diagnosed with lung cancer, the cancer has already spread beyond the lungs and is therefore not treatable with surgery. Screening can help doctors detect lung cancer before it has the chance to spread.
New research published by JAMA Oncology suggests that these developments have made a meaningful impact on lung cancer patients' survival. The research reports a nearly 10% improvement in the five-year survival rate of people with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) when compared to numbers published by the National Cancer Institute in 2014 and 2015. NSCLC makes up about 84% of lung cancers, according to the American Cancer Society.
Read MoreLung Cancer Screening
Lung cancer has a higher mortality rate than of colon, breast, and prostate cancers combined, but how can screenings make a difference?
Many lung cancers are found accidentally, but screening can help doctors diagnose lung cancers at earlier stages of the disease when successful treatment is more likely. Early-stage lung cancers that are removed with surgery may even be curable. But more often than not, lung cancer diagnoses come after the disease has already spread to other parts of the body, making it more difficult to treat.
"In about 70 to 80 percent of patients who are diagnosed with lung cancer, unfortunately the cancer has spread outside of the lung and is not suitable for surgery," said Dr. Patrick Forde, a thoracic oncologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine, in a previous interview with SurvivorNet.
But screening methods such as the low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan can save lives if those who are at risk participate. This test uses a very small amount of radiation to create highly detailed pictures of your lungs to reveal cancer long before initial symptoms. The State of Lung Cancer 2020 report from the American Lung Association found that screening every currently eligible person would save close to 48,000 lives, but only about 6 percent of Americans who are at high risk are actually getting screened.
"The concern is perhaps patients who are on Medicaid or don't have insurance will not be referred for appropriate screening," Dr. Forde says. "I think it behooves us all to try and increase the uptake of CT screening in particular, given that it's been shown to reduce lung cancer mortality."
28-year-old lung cancer survivor Amanda Kouri advocates for early detection, because she wants everyone with the disease to have a story like hers.
Who Should Get Screened?
You should talk to your doctor about getting a low-dose CT scan (LDCT) or chest x-ray if you are at high risk or if you experience a cough that does not go away, a cough that produces bloody mucus, or if you experience chest pain or trouble swallowing or breathing.
Nearly 20 percent of lung cancer mortality in the United States each year have never smoked or used any other form of tobacco, but smoking is a huge risk factor for the disease since the tobacco in cigarettes is a carcinogen that causes mutations in lung cells and enables the growth of cancer. If you quit smoking, you can significantly reduce your risk of developing the disease, but you don't go all the way down to the level of a non-smoker.
In March 2021, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPST) introduced new guidelines that dropped the age of eligibility for lung cancer screening and the number of "pack years," or number of years a person smoked an average of one pack of cigarettes a day. The new guidelines specify that adults ages 50 to 80 who have a 20-pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years should be screened. So if someone smoked one pack of cigarettes per day for 20 years, their "pack history" would be 20 years, and they should be screened. But if someone smoked two packs a day for 10 years, they would also have a 20 year "pack history."
The USPSTF says that expanding screening eligibility will be "especially helpful" to Black people and women and will increase screening access. Data shows that both groups tend to smoke fewer cigarettes than white men. Data also shows that Black people have a higher risk of lung cancer than white people.
Contributing: SurvivorNet staff
Learn more about SurvivorNet's rigorous medical review process.